AppSumo Originals Roundup: TidyCal, SendFox, KingSumo & BreezeDoc
AppSumo builds its own software and sells them as lifetime deals. Here's a breakdown of all four AppSumo Originals — KingSumo, SendFox, TidyCal, and BreezeDoc — with ratings, pros, cons, and pricing.
What Are AppSumo Originals?
AppSumo doesn't just sell other people's software — they actually build their own applications and offer them as lifetime deals on the marketplace. These in-house tools are known as AppSumo Originals, and as of mid-2024, there are four of them: KingSumo, SendFox, TidyCal, and BreezeDoc.
What makes these particularly interesting is the pricing. Because AppSumo has a built-in audience constantly discovering and purchasing these tools, there's a strong argument that these lifetime deals are among the safest LTD purchases you can make. The company has every incentive to keep developing and supporting them for the long haul.
Each tool tackles a different business need — giveaways, email marketing, appointment scheduling, and document signing — so let's walk through all four and see how they stack up.
KingSumo: Simple, Affordable Giveaway Contests
KingSumo is a giveaway and contest platform that lets you collect email signups by offering prizes. The setup is straightforward: you create a contest with a headline, countdown timer, and entry form. Participants enter their name and email, then get options to earn bonus entries by sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Messenger, email, or by taking actions on YouTube like subscribing to a channel.
Creating a giveaway takes just a few minutes. You fill out a form with your prize details, configure bonus entry options, and set up your terms and rules. KingSumo integrates with Zapier, SendFox, Klaviyo, MailChimp, and several other platforms — plus there's an API if you need a custom integration. You can embed your contest directly on your website or simply share the link.
Pricing is hard to beat. There's a completely free plan, and the lifetime Pro upgrade is just $49. Even better, if you're an AppSumo Plus member, you get KingSumo Pro included at no additional cost. The main downside is that you can't fully remove KingSumo branding — you can embed the contest on your own domain, but the KingSumo logo stays. For a simple, no-frills giveaway tool, though, it's an easy pick at this price. Rating: 8.7 out of 10.
SendFox: Budget Email Marketing That's Gotten Much Better
SendFox is AppSumo's answer to MailChimp — an email marketing platform aimed at content creators and small businesses. When it first launched, it had some real problems: deliverability issues, branding plastered all over emails, and limited integrations. Four years later, most of those pain points have been addressed.
The value proposition here is staggering. Tier five gets you 25,000 contacts for a one-time payment of $245. Compare that to MailChimp, ConvertKit, or Klaviyo, where you'd spend $150 to $400 per month for similar contact limits — that's thousands per year versus a single payment. The branding issue has been solved with the "Empire" add-on at $10/month, which also improves deliverability and gives you a full code editor for emails. All emails are sent through SendGrid.
One standout feature is Smart Campaigns. You connect content sources — your YouTube channel, podcast, or blog — and SendFox automatically pulls in your latest content so you can generate newsletters with a few clicks. Select the videos or posts you want to feature, hit generate, and you've got a ready-to-send email complete with thumbnails and descriptions. The platform also offers Smart Pages for building signup landing pages without needing your own website.
Integration support has expanded significantly, with tools like WP Fusion now supporting SendFox natively. The automations aren't the most complex you'll find, but that's by design — this is meant to be simple and accessible. What would take it to the next level? Deeper integrations with WooCommerce and Shopify to compete more directly with Klaviyo in the e-commerce space. Rating: 7.9 out of 10.
TidyCal: The Best-Value Scheduling Tool on the Market
TidyCal is AppSumo's Calendly competitor, and it might be the single best value across all AppSumo Originals. For $29 — one time, not monthly — you get a fully featured scheduling tool that does nearly everything Calendly does. Calendly, by comparison, charges $10/month or $120/year.
The booking experience is clean and familiar. You set up booking types with custom URLs, descriptions, photos, and available time slots. There's support for specific-date events (great for conferences or one-off sessions), buffer time between meetings, video conferencing integrations with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, group bookings, and guest invitations. You can also accept payments through PayPal or Stripe directly on your booking page.
Need multiple seats? There's no complicated team plan — just buy TidyCal again for each user at $29 a pop. You can embed individual booking types or your full booking page on your own website, giving you more control over the experience. Like KingSumo, the TidyCal branding can't be fully removed, but for a scheduling tool, that's a much smaller concern than it would be for email marketing.
For anyone who needs appointment scheduling — consultants, coaches, freelancers, agencies — TidyCal is an absolute slam dunk at this price point. Rating: 8.7 out of 10.
BreezeDoc: Lightweight Document Signing for Small Businesses
BreezeDoc is the newest AppSumo Original, tackling document signing and e-signatures. Upload a PDF, add custom fields — signatures, text, checkboxes, dates, and initials — assign them to different parties, and send it off for legally binding signatures. There's even an activity feed so you can track who's viewed and signed your documents.
The interface is dead simple. You drag and drop fields onto your document, resize them as needed, and assign each field to the appropriate signer. AppSumo provides some starter templates (like a business coaching agreement), and you can save your own reusable templates for documents your business sends regularly — things like release forms, contracts, or NDAs.
Pricing follows the same aggressive LTD model. The free plan lets you try it out, but at $9 for tier one (with two documents per month), it's already incredibly affordable. By tier four, you're paying $39 one time for up to 40 documents per month, which covers the needs of most small businesses. The main limitations right now are a small template library (though expansion is planned) and a lack of third-party integrations. A TidyCal + BreezeDoc integration — automatically sending an agreement when someone books a paid appointment — seems like an obvious win that hopefully comes down the road.
One important caveat: if your business needs more than 40 signed documents per month, BreezeDoc likely isn't the right fit, as AppSumo hasn't indicated plans for higher-volume tiers.
Which AppSumo Originals Should You Buy?
All four AppSumo Originals deliver exceptional value for what they cost. If you're an AppSumo Plus member, KingSumo and SendFox are included with your membership, making them essentially free. TidyCal at $29 is the standout value — it's nearly impossible to justify paying Calendly's monthly fees when this exists. And BreezeDoc at $39 for lifetime document signing is a no-brainer if you regularly need signatures.
Because these tools are built and maintained by AppSumo themselves, they carry less risk than a typical lifetime deal from a third-party startup. AppSumo has the revenue, the audience, and the incentive to keep these products running and improving. If you've been on the fence about any of them, there's really no rush — these deals have been available for years and show no signs of going away.
Watch the Full Video
Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.
